Category running

It´s been three days since my first go at implementing my vibram fivefingers into HIIT training and it was about time for day 2. The truth is two days ago I went to the gym with a friend from work and couldn´t resist bringing my treksports along so tried them out at the treadmill for the first time too.

As you know, my training consists of ten minutes warm up running, five minute HIIT and then another ten minutes cool down. This may seem soft to many of you but you must consider I am in a state of transition to minimalist shoes and it´s a lot more than it seems.

First consequence of today´s training is that my legs weren´t fully recovered from last time so the training began with some muscular stiffness. This stiffness felt a bit funny at first, specially because it took me three or four minutes to figure out the right pace and stride. HIIT went pretty well, same as last time. It´s as if vibram fivefingers were designed for sprinting rather than steady running.

Lastly the strangest part: As I was feeling pretty well I decided to stretch the last bit of running to fifteen minutes. It seems the more tired I was the more difficult it was for me to maintain the right posture thus making different muscles in my legs work harder. The feeling I got was that my legs were working in a totally assimetric way no matter how hard I tried to make my effort homogeneous. The result: I feel I ´ve stressed different muscles in each leg.

Overall I think I will recover from this run much faster: My calves aren´t even half as loaded as the first time but I know I still have a long way to go. See you on day three!

Although yesterday when I finished running I was feeling awesome this morning when I woke up my legs and buttocks felt tight as hell. Given the present situation I have decided to take a rest and allow my muscles to recover.

I ve been doing some research on the difference between trailing models and urban/asphalt models to see if there was much of a difference in design. The truth is appart from having a slightly thicker modified sole to increase grip and reinforced structure all five fingers models are pretty similar.

That makes me wonder whether using fivefingers with a thicker sole may be better for transitioning to barefoot running. I used to have a Bikila model and I get the feeling that it was much harder on my feet than my current treksport model. I am not an expert but if you are planning on transitioning I would definitely suggest a trailing model, that is, if you intend to use it for running. Just talking out of my own experience though, could be different for others.

So, my mission for today is to fight off the urge to slip into my fivefingers and let my feet recover. Tomorrow I will resume my 25 minute training and see how it goes

Two years ago I spent a month working on shifts. I would work from 2200 until approximately 0700-0800 on the next day. As soon as I finished work I went to bed and slept through the morning till lunchtime. Unplugged from my friends and my family it was at this time that I started running with minimalist shoes.

The first few times were painful. I would run for half an hour and my calves ached for a couple of days. After two weeks I finally started getting used to it and felt how my legs were growing stronger. The reason I left after one month of training was that I started to feel intense ache in the balls of my feet. Not wanting to develop plantar fascitis I stopped running for a while and abandoned minimalist running

I never really gave much thought to it anymore. My vibrams remained in the closet under a pile of shoes and months passed before I remembered where they lay. I tried to use them a few times afterwards but I couldn´t see the point of risking an injury when everyone said they were supposed to be good for your health.

It was clear that transition had to be very very slow. It was also clear to me you couldn´t make that transition when starting to train. Starting from a certain leg strength was paramount. Finally if I wanted to succeed I needed to really want to. This meant switching to minimalist shoes once and for all. That´s what this blog is all about.

For a couple of years now I ve been trying to switch to minimalist running shoes. Sometimes my training ended up in injuries, sometimes it just got uncomfortable and I quit.

Enough of that though. I have spent the last few months training hard to achieve a better running condition using conventional asics shoes. My legs are strengthened and I am positive this time I will succeed switching to minimal shoes.

These are my vibram fivefingers treksport. The only reason I chose this model was its slightly thicker sole designed for running in non paved roads.

I decided to start interval training with the result of swapping my 45 minute to 1 hour runs with 25 minute trainings consisting of a 10 minute warm up run, 4 minute HIIT and another ten minutes of cool down run. Since the routine is much shorter I expected it to be softer on my calves and so it was.

Today I was careful not to push myself too hard as it was my first day but I didn’t need to. As many of you will know by now minimalist shoes equal calf loading and eventually calf pain. During the first ten minutes I focused on proper running technique: landing softly, absorbing impact with my muscles, shorter strides etc… This worked out OK.

Surprisingly enough the HIIT (high intensity interval training) consisting of 8×20 second sprints with 10 second rests in between, which I thought would be the most demanding part for my feet was actually not hard at all. During sprints the foot naturally lands on the ball thus being the perfect training for using minimal shoes.

Lastly during the 10 minute cool down run I started feeling the familiar calf pain associated to these shoes. I was careful to stretch properly and though I still feel some soreness I consider this first day of training as successful. Let s hope tomorrow will be even better.